


every mistake made was purposely

by bosspigeon



Series: The Dadwolf Saga [3]
Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Character(s) of Color, Cryptids, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, LGBTQ Character of Color, Trans Dadsona (Dream Daddy), Trans Male Character, Werewolves, father-daughter bonding, werewolf dadsona
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23174419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bosspigeon/pseuds/bosspigeon
Summary: Team Hadley, right? Felix's life has had its fair share of ups and downs, but at least he's always got his daughter to save him from getting too stuck in his own head. And to save him from emotionally exhausting conversations with his loving, but somewhat overbearing, mother.Title from "Wolfman" by the Front Bottoms
Series: The Dadwolf Saga [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665931
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	every mistake made was purposely

“ _ Yes _ , Mom,” Felix sighs. He's got the phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder, and though he knows he's going to have the crick from hell later, he also knows his mother will keep him on the phone for a solid two hours before she loses steam, and he has ten thousand words to crank out before Sunday. “Amanda is applying to colleges.  _ Yes _ , she's applying to multiple schools.  _ Yes _ , she has gotten the details of Laurel's internship program,  _ and _ Imogene's offer to write her a letter of recommendation. I told both of them she wants to get in based on merit and not nepotism.” He rolls his eyes. “I know, Mom, I know, but you know how she is. And she's talented, you know that too. She can do it, even without a fancy marketing internship or a glowing recommendation from a tenured professor.”

He sighs and tilts his chair back, pushing up his glasses and squeezing the bridge of his nose. “And tell Imogene if she sends that letter without telling Amanda, she's told me she  _ will _ find out, and she  _ will _ give Halle and Willa chocolate covered coffee beans at the next family get-together. Yes, she is confident in her ability to do so undetected until it's too late. She's been practicing. On who? No clue, and the less I know about it, the more airtight my alibi.”

He hears the front door swing open, the jingle of keys, and the familiar struggle of Amanda fighting her boots off at the door. “Dad, I'm home!” she hollers, as if he can't hear her hopping on one foot as she tries to get her boot off the other.

“Hear that, Mom?” he interjects his Mother's lecture he wasn't really listening to anyway, because he's been struggling with the same paragraph for half an hour already and his brain is tired enough without trying to process Isolde Hadley's special brand of well-meaning browbeating, “Panda's home! Panda! Come talk to your grandma!”

“Did you tell her to tell Auntie Imogene about the coffee beans?”

“I did!”

“Did she ask questions?”

“She did, but I didn't squeal!”

Amanda finally wins the fight with her footwear and comes pattering into his office in her socks. She's still got her gym clothes on under her jacket, her hair tucked up underneath a backwards baseball cap. She snags the phone from him and helpfully pushes his head to the side. He hears a faint crack and sighs with relief.

“Hey, Gramma!” Amanda says cheerily. “Yeah, I'm good. College applications are indeed happening, thanks for asking! Well, I've applied to a few, but I really want to get in to…”

Felix lets his mind hone in on his screen without the distraction of his loving but very forceful mother sniping in his ear, and manages to eke out a whole forty words before Amanda's leaning on his shoulder and handing his phone back to him. The call is ended, and he makes a noise of approval at the call time. “Record time, Panda. You're a miracle worker.”

“It's easy enough, you're just a pushover,” she teases, scrubbing at his hair. He laughs and swats at her, and she drapes herself over the back of his chair and hums. “You just gotta learn how to tell her you've got work to do. She understands  _ work _ .”

He sighs, “I know, I just feel bad telling her no.”

Amanda pinches his cheek and coos at him. “I know, I know. ‘Cause you're her  _ baby _ , and she  _ wuvs _ you and  _ misses _ you.” She kisses where she pinched and hugs him before spinning his chair around. “I told her you'd make plans to take her somewhere nice next time she comes to visit, so make sure to plan something.”

He sighs. “God, is there even a good steakhouse in Maple Bay? You know how she is.”

She grins evilly. “You could always invite Brian over and have him cook something up.”

“You're sleeping in the backyard for even suggesting that, you monster,” he says with a scowl. “She'd adopt him on the spot, and I'd never escape.”

“Daaaad,” she drawls. She wobbles his chair from side to side. “He's really nice, and his dog is cute, and his kid is cool, and you need to make  _ friends _ .”

“I have friends.”

“The entire DVD box set of  _ Friends _ does not count.”

“I would  _ never _ be friends with Ross Geller.”

“I know, Pops,” she assures him gently. She doesn't let go of the arms of his desk chair, though, and she looks at him ponderously for a long while. Long enough for him to get suspicious. “I'm glad you're feeling better, at least,” she says softly, losing that teasing edge and getting  _ dangerously  _ close to gentle. “I was worried about you, you know?”

He smiles a little, wobbly smile. “Panda, I'm okay,” he tells her, “I promise.”

“I know,” she mumbles. She turns her cap around so she can hide her eyes under the brim. “I'm just… I was worried,” she says again, helplessly. She straightens up and wrings her hands, picking at her already ragged cuticles.

It was awkward enough, explaining to her why he was basically a useless sad lump for a solid two weeks after dragging himself home in day-old clothes smelling like a stranger a month back, even  _ more _ so when they went to Joseph's BBQ and she smelled said stranger  _ there _ . But their policy has always been honesty and open communication, so that's how he wound up explaining to his teenage daughter that he'd had the first one night stand of his life with a man who turned out to be their  _ neighbor _ .

And that said neighbor had ignored him after it happened, and basically shattered his already fragile self-esteem.

_ And  _ that said one-night stand was most likely the direct result of his complicated feelings about his only child's impending graduation and subsequent moving away to start her adult life, and the fact that his own life and identity has essentially revolved around her since his husband walked out on them when she was four, and he's been unwilling to even attempt dating in the fourteen years since.

As awkward as it was in the moment, at the very least it was pretty cathartic for both of them to get it out in the open.

There's a lot Felix has told Amanda directly. Again, their relationship is built on a foundation of trust and honesty. He’s never wanted her to feel like she can’t come to him for anything, and so he makes sure there’s an open two-way of communication, within reason. But there's still some things he's only implied, or left out entirely. He's always been careful to make sure Amanda knows he loves her, without a doubt, and there never  _ was  _ a doubt. That regardless of her “donor dad's” issues, she was the center of Felix's world from the day he first knew she would exist. He hopes he's never given her reason to doubt  _ that _ , at least. Hopes he gave her all the love she was missing and then some with one parent out of the picture.

“I'm okay, he assures her again, and smiles genuinely. “I really am. I'm sorry I made you worry.”

“I just don't want you to be lonely while I'm gone,” she says in a small voice. “I'm not trying to like… set you up and marry you off before I leave, but I dunno, I just… I want you to have people you can trust with your feelings when I'm not around.”

“Baby, it's my job to worry about you, not the other way around,” he says sternly.

Amanda frowns hard at him, and she stops fidgeting long enough to clench her fingers in familiar frustration. “That's  _ stupid _ , Dad. We're a  _ team _ , we always have been. We take care of each other. Maybe in different ways, but that's how it's always been, and that doesn't need to change just because I'll be gone for a while.” She leans in again and pushes her forehead into his shoulder. “There's nothing wrong with needing someone.”

He swallows the lump in his throat and blinks away the tears gathering hot in his eyes. He wraps his arms tight around her shoulders. “You have enough to worry about right now, Panda. It's not fair to burden you with my shit while you're dealing with some of the biggest changes of your life.”

“Your feelings are  _ not _ a burden, Dad,” she mumbles fiercely into his shirt. Her fingers clench tight against his chest. “You never made me feel like mine were, why do it to yourself?”

Felix chokes up too much to speak, and he nuzzles her ballcap and ignores the way the bill is digging into his collarbone. He just wants to hold her for a little while, and remember a time she could fit in his lap, before she shot up like a tree and wound up almost an inch taller than him.

When she pulls back, she straightens her cap and twists the bill around back again. Her eyes are a little puffy and red, but she's smiling. “Team Hadley?” she offers weakly, voice thick with unshed tears.

“Team Hadley,” he rasps back. They bump fists and she clears her throat.

“I'm gonna go look up steakhouses Gramma might like,” she says, twisting the hem of her t-shirt between her hands.

The transition is awkward, like most of them are in the aftermath of their heart-to-hearts, and jabs his thumb at the open document on his computer. “I'm gonna try to finish up this work,” he replies, smiling a crooked little smile. She hovers in the doorway a second longer, so he offers, quietly, “Then I might dust off my Dadbook and see if anyone wants to hang out.”

She beams at him, relief practically oozing from her pores, and hurries off to her room.

He smiles to himself and tucks back into his work with renewed vigor, and hopes he can finish up before peak Dad Hangout hours are over.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I am alive and I do still write occasionally! I've actually been sitting on this for a while (along with a few others that still need polishing) but I figured if I didn't start posting them soon, I never would and it's been... over a year since I did the first one? So, uh. Yeah. Sorry about that.
> 
> This is mostly just a short little character/relationship study I thought I'd post because it was very sweet, and I love the relationship between Amanda and the Dadsona in the game. So, here's a little tidbit, featuring Felix and Amanda's family! Let me know if you'd like to see more, and I'll try to squeak some more out! <3


End file.
